Rāja Yoga

The path of meditation. If the mind is the instrument through which we see everything, this path sets out to tune it — patiently, from restlessness to stillness — until it shows what lies beneath it.

Everyone who has tried to sit quietly for five minutes has met the problem this path addresses. You decide to watch your breath; within seconds you are planning dinner, replaying an argument, wondering whether you locked the door. Arjuna said it for all of us: the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and stubborn — as hard to hold as the wind (Gītā 6.34). Rāja yoga, the “royal” yoga, is the tradition’s systematic answer: a way of training attention until the mind becomes a clear lake rather than a storm.

Why “royal”?

Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra never uses the word rāja-yoga. The name has its own history, and it helps to know which meaning someone has in mind:

In medieval yoga texts, rāja yoga is the goal: the king among yogas, the state of samādhi in which the mind is dissolved. Svātmārāma’s Haṭhapradīpikā (15th century) opens by saying that it teaches haṭha for one purpose only:

केवलं राजयोगाय हठविद्योपदिश्यते ॥ kevalaṃ rājayogāya haṭha-vidyopadiśyate The science of haṭha is taught solely for the sake of rāja yoga. Haṭhapradīpikā 1.2 (second half)

Its fourth chapter treats rāja yoga, samādhi, the “mindless” state and liberation-in-life as names for the same thing. Haṭha is the ladder; rāja yoga is the roof.

The mind as instrument

On Yoga as Philosophy you can see Patañjali’s theory: the mind (citta) is not the Self but its finest instrument, constantly turning, and freedom begins when its turnings settle. For the practitioner, this has one huge consequence: the mind can be trained. You are not condemned to whatever it does next.

The training has two sides, practice and dispassion (abhyāsa and vairāgya). Practice, Patañjali says, grows firm when kept up for a long time, without a break, and with care. In everyday terms: the same time each day, small enough to keep, sustained over months rather than heroic for a week. Dispassion is the other hand — gently letting go of whatever pulls you away. Krishna gives the same two in the Gītā, and his instruction for the moment the mind wanders is the beginner’s whole practice in a verse:

यतो यतो निश्चरति मनश्चञ्चलमस्थिरम् ।
ततस्ततो नियम्यैतदात्मन्येव वशं नयेत् ॥ yato yato niścarati manaś cañcalam asthiram,
tatas tato niyamyaitad ātmany eva vaśaṃ nayet Wherever the restless, unsteady mind wanders off, from there, from there, one should draw it back and bring it under the sway of the Self. Bhagavad Gītā 6.26

Not “stop the mind from wandering” — that is impossible at first — but “bring it back, from wherever it goes.” The returning is the practice.

Concentration, meditation, absorption

The heart of rāja yoga is the last three of Patañjali’s eight limbs, explained one by one on The Eight Limbs. Dhāraṇā is holding attention on one place or object; dhyāna is when that holding becomes an unbroken flow; samādhi is when the object alone shines and the sense of a separate meditator falls away. They are not three different activities but three depths of one, and Patañjali gives them a single name:

त्रयमेकत्र संयमः ॥ trayam ekatra saṃyamaḥ The three together on one object are saṃyama. Yoga Sūtra 3.4

Seeker’s analogy Think of pouring water. In concentration it falls in drops — attention lands, slips, lands again. In meditation it pours as a steady stream. In absorption there is no more pouring: only water. Saṃyama, Patañjali says, brings “the light of insight” (3.5), and is applied in stages (3.6).

Nine obstacles

Patañjali is a realist. He lists the things that scatter the mind and stall practice — the antarāyas, obstacles (1.30). Every meditator meets them. Tap each:

They bring companions, Patañjali adds: distress, dejection, unsteadiness of the body and ragged breathing (1.31). His remedy is plain — practice on a single principle (1.32). And he gives a striking promise just before the list: through repetition of Om and devotion to the Lord, inward awareness dawns and the obstacles disappear (1.29).

Supports for the mind

Before the eight limbs, Patañjali offers a set of simpler aids for calming the mind. The first concerns how we meet other people:

मैत्रीकरुणामुदितोपेक्षाणां सुखदुःखपुण्यापुण्यविषयाणां भावनातश्चित्तप्रसादनम् ॥ maitrī-karuṇā-muditopekṣāṇāṃ sukha-duḥkha-puṇyāpuṇya-viṣayāṇāṃ bhāvanātaś citta-prasādanam The mind becomes clear by cultivating friendliness towards the happy, compassion towards the suffering, gladness towards the virtuous, and equanimity towards those who do wrong. Yoga Sūtra 1.33

It is a remarkably practical teaching. Envy of the happy, contempt for the suffering, resentment of the good and rage at the wicked are exactly what keep a mind churning. The same four attitudes appear in Buddhist teaching as the “divine abidings,” one of many signs of a shared contemplative culture. Patañjali goes on to suggest other supports: regulating the breath by exhaling and pausing (1.34), a subtle sense-experience, an inner luminosity, the mind of someone free of passion, insight from dreams, or simply “meditation on whatever appeals to you” (1.35–39). The path is more flexible than its reputation.

Then there is the Lord. Devotion to Īśvara (īśvara-praṇidhāna) is offered as a way to samādhi in its own right (1.23), and his “word” is Om:

तस्य वाचकः प्रणवः ॥ तज्जपस्तदर्थभावनम् ॥ tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ. taj-japas tad-artha-bhāvanam The word that expresses him is Om. Its repetition, with reflection on its meaning, [is the practice]. Yoga Sūtra 1.27–28

Rāja yoga is often presented as a purely technical path, but Patañjali places devotion in its very first chapter. Those who pray will find a home here; those who don’t can rest on the breath or another support.

Powers are not the point

The third chapter of the Yoga Sūtra describes the siddhis, extraordinary powers said to come from saṃyama on different objects — knowledge of past lives, of others’ minds, great strength and more. Patañjali says that certain of these powers (3.36) are obstacles in samādhi, though accomplishments to the outward-turned mind (3.37 in the common numbering), and that freedom needs dispassion even towards them (3.50). How central the powers are to the Sūtra is debated. Whatever one makes of the claims, the lesson for a beginner is sound: unusual experiences in meditation — lights, tingling, visions — are not the goal and are best neither chased nor feared.

Haṭha yoga, briefly

Haṭha traditions From about the 11th century, a body-centred yoga took shape, associated with the Nāth yogīs and teachers such as Gorakṣanātha, and with the Tamil Siddhars. Historians such as James Mallinson and Mark Singleton note that it grew out of a Tantric milieu, both Śaiva and Buddhist. Its classic manual, the Haṭhapradīpikā, teaches postures (āsana), cleansing practices, breath-retentions (kumbhaka), seals (mudrā) and locks (bandhas) at the root, the abdomen and the throat, and inner sound (nāda). Its aim is to steady the body and breath so that the mind dissolves into samādhi — rāja yoga. These techniques were traditionally learned from a teacher, step by step, and the texts themselves warn of harm from forceful practice. They are not for experimenting with from a book.

Modern The posture-centred yoga of today’s studios grew from haṭha yoga blended with 20th-century physical culture. It has real value, but it is a different thing from the meditative path of Patañjali; see The Sutras.

Teachers of the path

The Tamil saint Tirumūlar, in the Tirumantiram, joined yoga to Shaiva devotion, and the Siddhar poets carried that blend into popular Tamil song. The Yoga-Yājñavalkya frames its yoga as a teaching to Gārgī. In modern times, Vivekananda brought rāja yoga to the West, and Swami Sivananda, a Tamil doctor who worked for about a decade in Malaya before renouncing, taught meditation and haṭha to vast numbers through the Divine Life Society — whose branches still hold classes across Malaysia.

How other schools read rāja yoga
  • Advaita values meditation as a powerful aid — it calms the mind so knowledge can take root — but holds that no state of mind, however deep, is itself liberation. See Jñāna Yoga.
  • Vaishnava traditions welcome meditation when its object is the Lord. The Gītā’s meditation chapter ends by calling the yogī who worships Krishna with faith “the most united of all” (6.47).
  • Shaiva Siddhānta counts yoga as the third of four stages — after service and worship, before knowledge — practised within devotion to Shiva.
  • Śākta and Kashmir Śaiva (Tantric) traditions use meditation, mantra and the awakening of kuṇḍalinī to recognise oneself as Śiva–Śakti, but hold that the decisive step is grace (śaktipāta). See Kashmir Shaivism.
  • Critics within bhakti warned that technique without love becomes pride; rāja yogīs reply that devotion to the Lord is already in Patañjali’s first chapter.

How to begin

Try this

Sit on a chair or cushion with your back upright but not stiff. Choose one support: the feeling of breath at the nostrils, or a silent, slow repetition of Om (or a name of God, or a calming word of your own). Set a timer for ten minutes. When the mind wanders — it will, many times — notice where it went, and bring it back, without scolding: “from there, from there.” At the end, sit for a few breaths doing nothing at all. Try the same time each day for two weeks before judging the result.

Go gently. Breathe naturally; this practice involves no breath-holding. Stop if you feel dizzy, panicky or distressed. If you have a heart or blood-pressure condition, are pregnant, have epilepsy, or live with a mental-health condition or past trauma, talk to a qualified professional before taking up intensive practice. Meditation is not a substitute for medical or psychological care.

Check your understanding:

Quick check

For the Haṭhapradīpikā, rāja yoga is…

Haṭha is taught “solely for the sake of rāja yoga” (1.2). Patañjali himself never uses the term.

Saṃyama is…

“The three together on one object” (3.4).

Which is not one of the obstacles in Yoga Sūtra 1.30?

The nine are illness, dullness, doubt, carelessness, sloth, craving, false vision, not gaining ground and instability.

Patañjali’s view of the siddhis is that they are…

Certain powers are accomplishments for the outgoing mind but obstacles in samādhi (3.37); freedom needs dispassion even towards them (3.50).

Questions people often ask

My mind wanders constantly. Am I failing?

No. Noticing the wandering and returning is exactly what the practice is. The Gītā’s “from there, from there” assumes the mind will keep running off.

Do I need a guru?

For simple breath-awareness or mantra repetition, many people begin with a book or a class. For intensive meditation, retreats, or haṭha techniques such as breath-retention and locks, the tradition insists on a qualified teacher — and with good reason. See The Guru.

Is rāja yoga compatible with my religion?

Patañjali’s Lord is a teacher rather than a creator, and he lets the meditator choose the object of meditation. People of many faiths practise attention and stillness. Whether to adopt Om or the Hindu framework is your own choice — see Yoga as Philosophy.

॥ Pause and reflect

  1. Which of the nine obstacles visits you most often?
  2. Think of one person who irritates you. Which of the four attitudes would calm your mind towards them?
  3. What would “small enough to keep” look like for your own practice?

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Sources & further reading